


Two and Two

by etal



Series: Office AU [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Fluff, M/M, Mild Smut, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 04:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18328310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etal/pseuds/etal
Summary: Financial reporting, meetings, office life





	Two and Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RubyIntyale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyIntyale/gifts).



> quid pro quo office fic for RubyIntyale to celebrate the end of the UK tax year. It might not make sense if you haven't read the Office Party fic but if you haven't, they fell in love via Secret Santa and then had sex on the photocopier. See what you missed?  
> Thanks to Ghostcat for performing an excellent audit on this to remove any egregious Britness. Sorry in advance to anyone who knows anything about any aspect of financial management.

**Guadagnino Inc. Human Resources Division: Employee Code of Practice**

**32\. 4 (iv) Relationships at Work Policy**  
**\- The employees involved must bring the relationship to the attention of their line manager as soon as reasonably practicable.**  
**\- If there is a conflict of interest arising from the relationship, the employer may consider moving one or both of the employees to another team or department, or terminate the employment of one of the parties if the conflict is very serious and cannot be resolved any other way.**  
**\- Relationships should not compromise the usual standards of behavior required of employees, including avoiding excessive or inappropriate public displays of affection both in the workplace and at work events (such as holiday parties), keeping personal communication to a minimum and leaving quarrels at home.**  
**\- Any unacceptable behavior following the breakdown of the relationship (unwanted sexual advances and any sexual harassment) will be handled with reference to the company dignity at work policy.**

First morning back in the office post-holidays: Armie is at his desk by 8:00 a.m. He spends most of the first day putting out office party related fires, one of which involves an actual fire (replacement fire extinguisher and sundry damage: $178.95). Apparently the print room had been in heavy use, and even though the copier had been so thoroughly trashed that the whole thing had to be replaced, no-one seemed overly concerned with tracing the ruination back to him and Timmy.

“Happens every year,” Donna in Office Services shrugs, watching the copier being wheeled away down the corridor like a battlefield casualty. “Every goddamn year.” 

Someone had pinned a sheet of A4 on the noticeboard in the staff kitchen, a perfect image of Timmy’s ass, with the palm of Armie’s right hand flat beside it, scrawled over with ‘WANTED - HAVE U SEEN THIS BUTT?” Armie crumples it in his fist and stuffs it into his pocket. Later, he he tears it into pieces and drops them into two different trash cans on his way home. Another copy of the butt picture appears the next day but the room is too full and he can’t get at it. It’s gone by the afternoon and it doesn’t come back. 

Hovering on the threshold of his office when he first got in, he’d seen that the cleaners had carefully replaced everything back on his desk, in the wrong places, obviously, but you couldn’t tell that… you couldn’t tell that… he’d closed his eyes, put the timer on his phone and let himself think about it for precisely forty-five seconds. You couldn’t tell that Timmy had pulled him into the office, had shoved everything that could be shoved off the desk and had tried to get himself into a fuckable position, as planned back in the copy room, but the logistics were against it: they were too drunk, too tired, too giggly and Armie had the inkling of an idea in his addled brain that if he was going to get to look at Timmy with all his clothes off and he was going to be allowed to touch every bit of him then he wanted to do it when he could see straight. 

So they’d sat together on the floor instead, backs against the desk, the sounds of the party far off. Timmy commando-crawled back into meeting room B to snag some chips and dip when they got hungry but mostly they sat next to each other, holding hands, trying to remember the lyrics to ‘Fairytale of New York’. Security threw them out at 3:00 a.m. and Timmy, swaying on his feet, had put his number into Armie’s phone saying something about getting together over New Year, kissed him sweetly on the cheek to say goodbye.

Armie woke up on his couch back home with the worst hangover of his life and slowly the pixelated memories of the party began to resolve into horrific HD. He drank a pint of orange juice, made himself eat some oatmeal, then got on the company intranet and downloaded the Guadagnino Inc. ‘Relationships at Work’ policy. It was an admirably clear and responsible set of directions.

He got a text from Timmy during a predictably awful hotel Christmas lunch with his parents ($140 a head, over-priced didn’t even come close but for the Hammers, the more a meal cost the less they all had to speak to each other so it was worth every penny). There were two more messages by the time he got home, the promised New Year’s invitation, so he’d sent a message saying ‘I don’t think this is a good idea. I’m sorry.’ and blocked Timmy’s number. He got another message later on from a number he didn’t recognise which just said ‘Seriously?’ so he blocked that one too and got back to the second draft of the Fisher report.

He waited all that first week for an email from HR calling him in or maybe just a cardboard box to arrive from the CEO’s office but by EOB on Friday, he released a breath he absolutely knew he was holding and let himself hope that his job was safe. 

Going forwards, he avoids the canteen. He starts coming in earlier, is at his desk by 7:00 a.m. every morning, leaves every evening at 8:30 p.m. and never goes anywhere near the basement. He sees him in the elevator once. Timmy says, “hi,” and stands next to him. The elevator is full so they end up pressed side by side. Timmy’s knuckles touch his and he has to hit the button and get off two floors below his own. He takes the stairs after that. Good for his daily step-count.

On January 16th he’s looking over Lisa’s list of internal expense requests when he hears the sound of someone softly clearing their throat just by his office door. He looks up to see Timmy standing there, pulling a strand of hair all the way down across his face to his chin. He’s got one leg of his pants rolled up to his knee again.

“Hey,” he says, from behind the hair.

“Can I. Help you?”

“I bought up our expenses sheet from Packing.”

Armie stares, can’t get himself to stop staring. Timmy looks just as… as … _nice_ as he had done all through December, which was very nice, very very nice, so _nice_. 

“I thought.. Uh… you said you guys didn’t really need to claim for anything.”

“Yeah, well I figured maybe we should have a better first aid kit down there. And some… yeah, hand sanitizer.”

He comes over and puts the form on the desk and then scrounges in his pocket and pulls out a crumpled sales receipt, dated today ($21.98), which he lays on top of it. 

“I got the cheapest stuff they had,” Timmy says. “And I could always…”

“I don’t collect the forms. Give it to Lisa please.”

Timmy holds onto the back of his neck, looks like he might try to reply and then he scoops his form and the receipt and is gone before Armie can say anything else.

Armie tries to get back to his report but all he can think about is what Timmy looked like when he was crawling onto this very desk, laughing his head off and trying to get Armie to climb on top of him. He thinks about kneeling in front of Timmy and wrapping a hand around his one bare shin. He thinks about Timmy squeezing out a blob of hand sanitizer. He opens his email and sends a two-line message to IT saying this is the last time he’s prepared to work with paper forms for internal expense collections and everyone can do some training and learn how to do the electronic signatures, and if they don’t like it they can buy their own damn first aid kits. Saves it to drafts.

Because Guadagnino Inc. doesn’t do anything in an orderly way, internal fiscal year reporting comes on April 1st which means he has to do his Q1 report _and_ try to make sense of the mess his predecessor made of the 2018-19 financials. Come February, Armie is late to Operations Committee because the figures he’s trying to marshal for the report fall away from his grasp like he’s trying to stuff a pile of loose change into a pocket with a hole in it. Worse still he’d forgotten that Derek from Marketing would be chairing while Danielle is out at the L.A. office. He tries to open the door really quietly and sidle into the meeting room but Derek glares up at him and snarks, “Good of you to join us Armie, fyi we’re taking Item 45 early: expansion of capabilities, linking top-funnel to BOFU and balancing out of CPI versus CPM.” 

Which means the SOB was seizing the opportunity to get Item 45 through before Armie arrived because it’s all about trying to siphon resources away from ground operations and into Marketing which Armie knows they don’t need to do if Derek would get his team to put as much effort into their agreed strategy as they do into planning the office party. He gets to his seat and is about to weigh in with his usual argument about why Derek is wrong when he realises that he’s sitting opposite Timmy. Timmy is wearing his usual uniform but he has both the sleeves rolled down and buttoned at the cuff and he has no visible bracelets on. His hair is tied back. It’s a small mercy.

“You remember we agreed at the November meeting that we would invite representatives of different departments to join as temporary co-opted members so that we could draw on expertise across the firm?” Derek says. “I thought it would be good to have a voice from the depths with us. You know Timmy Chalamet I think?”

Armie manges to nod. “Of course.” He jabs his pen into his leg under the table and focuses on Derek’s unpleasant face. “Look, Derek, what I’m seeing in the figures means we’re losing at least 10% of potential return customers because of hitches between order and delivery. It has nothing to do with lack of visibility. The business is ours already, the problem is that we’re not maximising flow-through.”

They’re snapping back and forth like this, with Derek clearly abusing his position as Chair to try to change this into a discussion about getting an extra body in Marketing to save his lazy ass a modicum of extra effort, when Timmy, out of nowhere, shoots his hand straight up in the air like he’s in math class. His neck flushes and he gulps, with everyone’s eyes on him.  


“Uh, have you thought about maybe upgrading the field service management software?”

Nobody says anything. He puts his hand down and tucks it under his chin and Armie has a catastrophic flashback to what it felt like to touch his delicate jaw where the skin was so soft and thin, holding him still so he could get at his mouth.

“The system we’ve got means we’re still using manual override if there’re mistakes or just small changes?” Timmy says, “so we have to find the order, switch it up, create a new tracking number… it’s kind of a pain in the ass. There are some pretty good systems for streamlining, It doesn’t have to be one of the like whizzy ones…” Timmy does a sudden series of karate movements with his arms which presumably are supposed to represent what really whizzy field service management software would look like. “I did a bit of research.” He opens a little folder and distributes copies of a list titled ‘FMS Options’, with their pros and cons and varied costings clearly itemized. “I think the top one looks the best.”

Armie looks through it carefully and nods, “Sounds good.”

“Yep,” says Chris B. from IT. Chris B. doesn’t often contribute but as he also has access to everyone’s browsing history across the firm no-one ever disagrees with him when he does, so Derek glares down at his agenda and aggressively crosses out Item 45.

“OK, I’ll send it upstairs - as a proposal.” He says ‘proposal’ like he’s saying ‘favor’.

Armie tries to smile at Timmy but he flicks his eyes away.

Later, though, they’re discussing the booking process for Meeting Room C and finally make a decision that it’s best if it’s just done through reception, the way it used to be up until six months ago when the Space Maximization Program was set up. “Could you put that into a document and we can cascade it down to our teams?” says HR Linda which is what she always says, because she has all the substance and forward direction of a cartoon cloud.

Armie looks at Timmy again, hoping, and this time, he gets a raise of the eyebrows, just a ripple, but it’s enough to make his heart swell a little.

Four hours later, when they’re finally through the agenda and are filing out, each of them feeling more paper-clip than person, Armie catches Timmy by the elbow and says “thanks, that was a smart suggestion. About the software?”

Timmy keeps moving, “Whatever,” he throws over his shoulder. “Just didn’t want him to get his own way.”

The following Monday, there’s a unscheduled fire alarm and there’s the usual evacuation party atmosphere as they all abandon their posts and head down the stairs. Armie’s about to head out across the lobby when he has a sudden thought about the basement. After all, the loading bay is a dangerous place. The fire doors might close and trap someone before he could get out. Or what if they have really loud music on and the siren isn’t working down there. He doubles back to the service stairs and is halfway down when Timmy and the packing crew come barrelling up the other way. There’s a pause and then the guys leap round him like salmon going upstream and he’s left looking up at Timmy, standing on the step above him. Armie remembers how easy it is to pick him up, how light he is. He could carry him out of here in a fireman’s lift if he had to.

“You shouldn’t go down there while the alert’s on. Was there something you needed?” They have to shout over the noise of the siren.

“Nothing. I just. … I wanted to make sure everyone was out.” 

“Are you fire warden?” Timmy shouts. Timmy knows that Armie is not the fire warden. Fucking _Derek_ is the fire warden although he never does anything to make sure everyone exits in a calm and orderly way. When they leave the building, not exchanging another word, Derek’s there on the sidewalk eating a doughnut and stringing out the break as long as possible. 

March is a nightmare. Nothing matches, nothing aligns and Armie has already shredded two different versions of the fiscal year report, which he’ll have to present to the Board and the CEO on April 1st. On March 31st, Chris F. from IT comes in at 6:37 p.m. with an apologetic expression and puts another folder in Armie’s in-tray. 

Armie gave him the briefest of glances and mutters, “thanks”, thinking dark thoughts about full automation of every aspect of the firm’s activity. He works on doggedly, no music, no distractions, stopping every now and then to stretch and crack his back. He’s lost all track of time when he hears a familiar clearing of the throat and there’s Timmy with a deli bag and a six-pack of diet coke under his arm.

“I saw your light was on and I thought maybe you might need some dinner.”

“I don’t have time for dinner. Why are you here so late?”

Timmy shrugs. “You’ve been working late all this week.” He unpacks his bag and sets out a couple of sandwiches, potato chips, and a side of pickles, offers Armie a can. “Looks like you’ve got a lot on.”

“Just a bit,” Armie says. 

“Can I help?” Armie’s about to say no but then he realizes that he really could do with another pair of hands and he’s also incredibly hungry. 

Timmy does help. He runs the copies of Armie’s final draft; makes a suggestion about the color-coding for departmental variables; he spots that the papers have collated incorrectly and re-sorts them all, patiently, setting the piles out across the floor, stapling them by hand. “Photocopiers,” he says, grinning, “They’re telepathic. They know when you need them to work and they have fifty different ways to fuck with you.” 

“Revenge,” says Armie. Timmy winks at him and Armie blushes, and says, “How much do I owe you? For dinner?” to cover it up.

“Armie,” Timmy puts his head in his hands, but he’s smiling. “How can you be so good at all this” he gestures at the tidy stacks of graphs and tables “and not be able to put two and two together?”

He gets up from where he’s kneeling, and _comes at_ Armie, and when he gets close enough he reaches out and unloosens his tie from its tight knot, pulling it until the satiny material gives with a little sigh. Armie covers his hands with his own.

“I can’t… I’m not right for you, it doesn’t work…”

“Yeah right. So why did you save my life? In the fire?”

“There wasn’t a fire.”

“You came to get me before you knew that. And you got me that software.”

“Well, you screwed with Derek for me.”

“See? It’s like a balance sheet. Profit and loss.”

“We _can’t_ ,” Armie says. “There’s a policy.”

“What policy?”

Armie opens it up on his phone, and Timmy glances at the list. He shrugs.

“So as long as we tell them and probably don’t try to fuck on the desk again, we’re fine. Have you seriously been avoiding me because of that?” 

“I didn’t want to compromise your dignity at work.”

“Armie…” 

“They put a picture of your ass on the noticeboard.”

“Not in a _bad_ way. But I like,” and Timmy kisses his chin, “that you care” then his cheek “about my” and says “dignity” straight into his mouth.

After that there’s nothing to do but allow himself to pulled down by his tie to Timmy’s mouth, then to have his shirt unbuttoned and his chest stroked and to be pushed back into his spinny chair, his lap straddled and his hair mussed. Armie thinks about disregarding the sensible plan about not fucking on the desk, or stacking the reports to one side and having an inappropriate public display of affection right there on the floor, but he wants to be able to work in this room without losing his mind on the daily, plus he wants Timmy to be able to lie back on something soft when he kisses his way down his body and gets his cock in his mouth to make him clutch and gasp and say his name over and over, so before they get any more excessive, Armie collects him up and takes him home, the very best bonus he’s ever had.

*

Armie wakes up at at 6:00 a.m., reaches for his laptop and writes an email. Timmy is sleeping peacefully, tucked against his side. 

**To: ceo@guadagninoinc.com**  
**Re: Request for line management meeting**  
**Dear Mr. Guadagnino,**  
**I need to request an urgent line management meeting in order to discuss a potential conflict with item 34.1.(iv) of the Employee Code of Practice, on my part.** **I would be grateful if this matter could remain confidential.**

**Armie Hammer**  
**Director of Finance**  
**Guadagnino Inc.**

He sits for a minute looking at the email, hits send and shoves the laptop out of reach, as if to stop himself from snatching the message back. Impossible of course, it’s gone, finding its way through the ether to Mr. Guadagnino’s inbox. Maybe he’ll open it over breakfast, or perhaps he doesn’t look at emails at all - maybe a message will come from his secretary at noon, or tomorrow, and maybe he’ll be suspended with immediate effect or they’ll just fire him on the spot… at least he got the report finished so his replacement won’t have to sort out the same mess he did...

… a ping brings him back to his screen. There’s a message from Mr. Guadagnino. It’s just one word - 

**-Timmy?**

Armie makes a strangled noise in his throat. Before he can think too hard about it, he types:

**Dear Mr Guadagnino, **  
**** **Yes. It wasn’t reasonably practicable for me to tell you before now.**  
**Armie Hammer**  
**Director of Finance**  
**Guadagnino Inc.**

And sends. He stays where he is, eyes fixed on the screen.

One minute, two… the consequences are bound to be more severe if the other person is in a junior position. Power differentials. 

Ping! There’s a message, with an attachment. The message says ‘Use by end of next quarter.’ Armie opens the attachment. Is it a form? A witness statement? 

It’s a signed expenses form, itemizing one (1) dinner for two (2) employees of Guadagnino Inc. at the French restaurant round the corner from the office, a place which, when Timmy lifts his sleepy head from under Armie’s shoulder and looks through his early morning daze at the screen, he will pronounce as ‘fancy’ before he makes Armie put his laptop on the floor and kisses him eyelashes to toes and all the way back up again.


End file.
